Monthly Archives: June 2008

I meant to write about this a month ago, but it slipped my mind. Anyway, a local news story of a bank job in my home town was ended with a quote from a member of the public beginning ‘this shows crime is getting worse’. Does it now?

The story was fairly standard. A number of men (in balaclavas) attacked a security guard as he made a delivery to Lloyds TSB. They drove off in a getaway car (Beemer, of course) which they dumped a few miles away, presumably getting into another car.

The police said ‘this is very unusual’, and yes crimes like this are. A local resident, in his 70s said it shows crime is getting worse… used to leave my back door open… it’s brazen to try a robbery in broad daylight.’

Funny thing is, most bank jobs are done in broad daylight, as far as I was aware. If you want to go in with a gun and a bag, you traditionally do this in the daytime, probably at opening or closing time ’cause the safes will be open for counting. Going at night is pointless, as the banks are closed. At night you need to break in, stop the alarm, do safe cracking and so on, unless it’s an inside job. If you’re going to rob the security van, you need to do this when it comes.

Indeed, the British Bankers’ Association said that last year saw more decline in bank robberies. The traditional ‘counter robbery’ has been in decline since 1992, and although this crime has been displaced to cash-in-transit robbery (as in this case) even this was lower last year. In this county there was one robbery like this in 2007, compared to two in 2006. (See here for some charts). Shocking!